See What You Have Done
by Allerdale
Summary: Among his mail, Odin Allfather finds an amber glass box—a form of mail that hasn't been used since he learned to walk. Inside the author offers him a story unparalleled to the ones he was so fond of sharing. The dark magic so ancient unfolds a tragedy beyond words, but it's the simmering fear that he knows who the anonymous sender is that keeps him awake. [A revenge story.]
1. Chapter 1

Odin Allfather would have liked to ask the sky what it had done to the sun, how it gained such audacity to leave him behind, but all he could do was raise his mug. Pretend he did not realize his mead was dripping down his beard. Stare. At the empty seat across the table.

He had been occupied with sorting through his mail (a complicated feat considering each realm enjoyed to employ its own unique form of communication) three weeks ago, prowling for the update from Alfheim, when he stumbled upon a message in a form he had not seen delivered since the assassination of the celestial whose skull made up Knowhere. An amber glass box with no markings it was, a mystery sent through space to him.

The Allfather left it behind, muttering to himself that he was not afraid of the contents of such an ancient mail piece, it was just that he was exhausted. He felt his bones sag inside his skin, and his skin tingled with fire ants. Asgard had the filter of a dream to it too no matter how much he forced himself out of nodding to sleep as he trod amongst the palace.

So he forgot about it. He had to meet an elf to tell him thank you, but it's too late four days later. Then he chose to take off his crown and walk among his people with poppy flowers in his arms to scatter where prompted. Then he reached the ceremony too early, stayed too late, fell asleep at the edge of the ocean. I am well, he said as he woke the next morning with sand glued to his face and hair soaked. Told his ravens to shut up and mind the business they were supposed to mind, he really was fine.

A week after he had found it, it found him. He doesn't remember how it happened, though his caretaker tells him he rose weeping in the small hours of the night and she couldn't find him across the sprawling throne rooms nor dungeons until she checked with the botanists of the wilting royal garden (Asgard's new gardener lacked the tender care it was used to).

He raved about the box, asking them if they even knew what it was. One guessed it was a gizmo of Alfheim, the one they had prayed would avoid the ceremony, though she said nothing after "Alfheim." The other could not guess at all. He had not even the faintest idea, though he admitted it pressed an eerie sensation into his chest. Like the particular type of dark magic that was so dark it was forbidden on millions of realms.

Yes, I am well, Gertrude, he would repeat twenty times per hour. She insisted he was not, that he should have been able to eat and drink if he were, and so he screamed at her that of course he wasn't well because of all her nagging.

"I will summon—"

"You will not if you value your head."

It weighed as much as a hundred planets. The Allfather admitted that after dinner time, during which he enjoyed carving her name in his roast and assorting the greens into a bouquet around it, and then admitted he did not remember this mechanism of mail having such a negative energy. He had been a boy who had just learned to walk, sitting on his father's knee when they were nearing their end of transits. Energy it did not have, he corrected himself. It was more a void staring at you, an object that defied all sorts of physic laws, something that was plain wrong to the mind. He couldn't see a thing through the box when he tried, but the eeriness grew stronger. It weighed heavy to the spirit, just being in the same room.

That sleepless night was the one in which he opened it. His premonition had been right: there was no way it was from the decapitated celestial of Knowhere.


	2. Chapter 2

Allfather, scratched an invisible finger upon the humidity in his chamber, there has been many galaxies and many years between us, but I still remember your fondness for stories. It both gladdens and unburdens me to present to you one unparalleled to the epic ones you have shared, of which I am long past late in repaying.

A rush went through his veins. Who is this entitled troll? How dare they assume he would have nothing better to do than watch their _so important_ story unfold. The thoughts were followed by a flood of panic. Is this payback from the realms which crumbled into ashes while the Bifrost had been rebuilding? He yanked the open box from inside the suspended cocoon he had created for it. There was no imprint at all even after opening it. No return to sender instructions, not even a telepathic connection to its messenger. He exhaled in raggedy fits. What was he supposed to make of the tone of the introduction? Clever and educated, that was what the teller sounded like, but in the writing was a slant of old anger.

He expected more writing once he let it float back into the cocoon, but a road appeared in his mind's eye. He recognized the attention to absolute detail as the teller literally wove words into a moving picture. A straight black road soaked with the deep scarlet of a setting sun. Rosy spring wind stirring the bristled blades of grass patches on the sides. And an automobile.

Midgard.

There was once this man, Jerome Gregorson, whom had succeeded in providing a summer escape for his family, said the last fading bits of the readable writing.

A stoic man was hunched behind the steering wheel. His graying beard rubbed against it as the vehicle shook from the cracks scattered along the road. A woman roused in the passenger seat, turned to him with a sleepy smile.

Her eyes shone with the restless power of tempests, yet her cheeks were tanned with the kiss of a kind summer. Odin had been annoyed that she was not named by the teller yet pained at the same time that he knew what he would name her. Two boys slept in the back seats. Nameless mother reached behind to shake the chubby boy's knee.

"Victor, wake up." She gently rubbed the willowy boy's knee. "Thorn, wake up. You boys won't sleep when we get home."

The two roused with muffled groans.

Jerome Gregorson smiled at them in the rear view mirror. "You boys ready for some more ice cream?"

Both roared their delight, the mention of the cold treat more than enough to swipe the sleepiness off their faces and voices.

"All they've eaten was ice cream, honey. For breakfast, at the beach, for lunch, at midnight."

"So? They're going back to school in two days. Now is when they inhale ice cream by the buckets."

"Can we stop at Cold Stone, Daddy?" asked Thorn.

Victor punched his arm. "We're in the middle of the Arizona desert, stupid. There isn't any Cold Stone here."

"Don't hit your brother," the mother said.

"And we can find one. The rest stop has wifi."

"We'll stop at McDonalds this time, bud, so we don't get too far behind schedule. I promise I will buy you the biggest ice cream cake when we get home."

"But don't get the Strawberry Passion, Dad. Get the MMMMMMint Chip," said Victor as he rummaged through his backpack.

"But I want the Strawberry Passion."

"You eat five bites and then I have to eat the rest. I'm sick of strawberry. I bet Mom's sick of seeing me eat it." Finding his phone wouldn't turn on when he asked Siri to launch his game, Victor tore through Thorn's blankets to take his.

"Hey," yelped Thorn. "Don't touch my phone with your greasy, fat hands."

"I need to join my team in the arena! They told me to get online." He shoved Thorn against the door as he snatched it.

"It's not my fault you don't charge it until it's red." He punched Victor's back. "It's mine! Give it back!"

The mother yelled both of their names, threatened to not allow Jerome in the door with another ice cream cake if they didn't stop. Still, they fought, until Thorn ended up on his back against the seats and Victor's body on top of him. He screamed for their mother to get the demon off him, and the rasp and breathlessness in his voice stirred her to pull Victor off him and let him fall between the seats.

"Ow," Victor whined, head hitting the door and back twisting awkwardly.

"Do not hurt your brother ever, do you understand me?" she whispered. The whisper made both of the boys' eyes widen and skin tighten.

"Sorry, Mom."

"Sorry won't do. Sit down and look out the window."

Jerome Gregorson caught Thorn's watery eyes slipping away from him in the rear view mirror.

"I'll buy a small Strawberry Passion just for you, Thorn. And I'll buy a big Mint Chip for you, Victor." He glanced at his wife. "Want a Tall Dark, honey?"

She crossed her arms and glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "You're missing the point, Jerome. Always missing the point."

"What did I say?"

"Never mind. Just get us to the rest area."

The family settled into an angry silence that was only broken by Victor trying to take Thorn's phone charger.

"Stop touching my stuff," Thorn boomed.

Ten more miles said the blue sign among miles and miles of dead desert shrubs and fallen cacti.


	3. Chapter 3

The Allfather had an odd sense of trepidation at the last scene before the story faded into black. It was not what he was expecting, which was a problem.

He was aware of the human references: ice cream and phones and cake and wifi. There was a familiar brotherhood between Gregorson's boys as well, a common chemistry to the royal households of old. Odin Allfather felt his skin tingling not from exhaustion but from something he was afraid of. An underwhelming story is not to be feared as much as criticized, he mumbled. He will do exactly that when he finds the teller. What happened to this being one story better than all the thousands he had memorized from generations of fathers telling sons?

Where were the righteous bloodbaths? The mighty prince giants holding up mountains of a realm to keep it from crumbling? Maidens dressing as men to fight alongside Asgard's enemies only to betray them all with a swift slash of their necks as Asgard's men fall?

Gertrude woke him hours later with a tray of breakfast. Slept, she said. Good for you and all of us, she said. You did all you could, Allfather, she said. He barked her out with a ramble about him being entitled to not sleep if he wants to, and once she was out he took the pillow that had been hers and pressed it to his nose.

Sunlight. Poppy flowers. A summer breeze. If he had not slept at all last night he could have believed her spirit held his arm.

Odin tossed the steaming breakfast to the ground. Bring Malekith back were the words his brain assaulted him with. Then kill him again and again. You do not understand, thou foolish lump of flesh, that you were the reason she died, echoed across the valley of his mind. You stood there frozen.

He shut his eyes. Breathed in and out a couple times. Remembered Gregorson was a good man with a beautiful family, so he retrieved the cube from the edge of the disheveled bed and opened it. The fade gave way to a bright fluorescent light.

The Gregorsons were outside a building. Machines with the processed bagged foods and canned drinks that Odin loathed the sight of lingered behind them. One of the boys was missing. Thorn. Victor was sitting on the curb near their vehicle with his charged phone in hand while Jerome and Mother browsed the machines. It hit Odin then, in their meandering about, that Thorn did not look like his father or brother. He had the same flatness to his upper lip as his mother but that was where the similarities ended.

He wrestled his blankets and pillows about. A creeping anxiety had made his heart skip a beat. He needed to relax and watch a minute, then he would find a way to trace its sender so he could return the pointless story back.

The family regrouped inside their vehicle as a sprinkling rain began. He remembered preparing for journeys with his own sons (a checklist to make sure Thor had two extra pairs of boots and Loki had enough barrels of water and vitamin salts packed and Frigga had as many dresses as daggers) while mother and father made certain the boys had all they needed for the last thirty miles. It struck him how a mother and father look the same in different races.

It seemed their road would have no end once Gregorson rejoined the road. The pastoral scene of a simple family driving home in a charged silence awakened a suffused longing in Odin's heart. He wished he could tell Gregorson to stop so he could show them the stars...though he had stopped for ice cream for Victor. Thorn refused getting one, but Mother had been a good mother, spoke over Jerome to tell the McDonalds employee to get them two ice cream fudges instead of one. Thorn had made Odin smile, though it hurt, when he asked his mother if she was just going to let it melt.

And just when Odin felt his eyelids grow heavy from the pitch blackness around their lonely car half an hour after the boys' sugar rush wore off, Jerome Gregorson slowed as he closed in on two old vehicles. One was rusted red and the other was matted white from age. The moment he thought one was going to pass the other, both cars slowed at the same rate so that they blocked both lanes.

Victor and Thorn had nodded off by that time, drooling against each others shoulders, tired out by the never ending fights behind their backlit screens.

"Just drive on the dirt until you pass one," said Mother.

"And drive into a cactus I can't see?"

She made a face. "We won't get home on time if you keep waiting on them to grow brains."

Jerome fell for the cars' trick once more, and he nearly did cut into the other lane as the white car sped up, but the red car swallowed his opening before he could take it, then swerved back into the lane it had been on.

"Blubbering idiots," Gregorson grumbled as he floored the gas. Their Cadillac swiveled into the rocky dusty earth and soared past both of them. Once Mother said they were far enough from them, they rejoined the right lane.

The two settled into their seats again. She stretched her arm above the armrest. "When will we be taking another vacation?"

"We just got back."

"But you're always so busy. I haven't seen Victor so adventurous and Thorn so open in years."

He laughed softly. His eyes held the sheen of a man who didn't know how to approach such an intimate compliment. "I'm glad I figured out how to take a picture on my brick."

"You making their astonished faces your screensaver too?"

"Of course. They were something else."

There came a rustle and a whisper from the back seats. "Daddy? That car's driving really close."

Mother turned in surprise. Her hands shot to her sides and clamped around her armrests. "Jerome, speed up," she shrieked.

Gregorson glanced into the rear view mirror with a stupefied look, and there was the red car, headlights off, so close to them that he could see the men's twisted grins inside.


	4. Chapter 4

Gregorson floored the gas. The red car screeched past them even faster, and cut their path again so that Gregorson had to slam on the break. Victor rolled off the backseat, body slamming against the back of the front seats, while Thorn grasped the neck of his father's seat until his knuckles went white. Their opened drinks tucked into the cup holders in front flew out in streams until the board dripped with sugar and coloring. Gregorson swerved onto the other lane and removed his foot from both break and gas while the red car flung itself into the distance like a blazing gunshot.

Mother's hand gripped his arm once their lights were like fireflies a mile away. "We need to stop somewhere."

"You said you wanted to drive all night. I told you the psychopaths drive this late."

"I know what I said, alright? But I don't want to drive anymore as long as we have to share the damned road with freaks like that."

A whimper rose from the backseats. Mother unbuckled her belt and turned.

"You're okay, Thorn?"

The younger who was still clinging to his father's seat nodded. "A little scared though."

"Me too," she said with a small smile. "But we'll be alright." She reached a hand down to Victor still crumpled on the floor. "How you doing, kiddo?"

He took his mother's hand and pulled himself up to his knees. "What happened?" he asked in a still sleepy voice. "My left side feels wrong."

Gregorson observed the white car as it passed at normal speed. The windows had a heavy tinting job bordering on being illegal, but he swore all he could see was the silhouettes of two women. A mother and daughter perhaps? His eyes flicked to the little red dots in the distance. Then why had they conspired with the red car? They certainly were not following them.

He convinced himself they must have been just as afraid of the red car. They'd wanted to break free from the game as well (heck, they could have been the victims before his family had caught up), but still, they could have been decent human beings by not making him and his whole family believe two groups of psychopaths were hunting them down.

"You'll be fine. There will be a bruise or two though. You know what I've told you both about keeping your seatbelts on."

"Yes, mommy," they muttered in union, but only Thorn clicked his seatbelt in place.

"You complain now but you both would have been better off if you had them on a minute ago... You boys alright with sharing a bed for the night?"

Neither of them said a word, but they didn't deny her either.

"You really want to stop?" Gregorson asked.

"Yes. The first motel we see is where we're stopping. Boys, be on the lookout, alright?"

"What if the first one we see is all dingy and crumbling?" Gregorson thought aloud.

Mother sent him a pointed glare. "We stop anyways."

The boys said they would help her look through yawns, but of course the road dragged on and there was no motel in sight. Endless, timeless, lightless, and open desert alone was their refuge.

An hour later, with his eyes drooping but his hand constantly guiding little sips of what was left of his Monster to his lips, Gregorson picked out an old wooden sign caught between overgrown ferns. It said there were two more miles until a small town would make an appearance. He did not catch the name, but two miles was close enough.

"Honey, you awake?" he whispered. His wife stirred in her seat, but she didn't answer. He glanced behind his shoulder and caught Thorn's long fingers brushing through Victor's thick and blond skater hair while his eyes watched the starry sky passing by. Despite the exhaustion pressing on his eyelids, Gregorson smiled. It wasn't like Victor to collapse on his brother's legs on car rides, but it was so like Thorn to play with Victor's hair when he thought he wouldn't be caught.

He remembered walking into Thorn's bedroom once, perhaps three years ago, to ask if he could borrow his MacBook charger until he found where his had been misplaced. Victor had gone swimming with the Swansman boys from across the street while Thorn had been busy rereading _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ for his honors English class. Sometime between Mother catching him up on their said whereabouts as she welcomed him home and dinner prep time when Gregorson needed the charger, Victor had crashed in on his brother and accidentally fell asleep.

He had just poked his head through the doorframe with the question ready to leave his lips when he saw. Thorn, with his newly battered paperback set aside (no doubt from their fight) had laid next to Victor and traced his freckled cheeks with the back of his nail. He was saying something he couldn't hear, but Gregorson had spun right around so Thorn wouldn't feel horrified at being caught enjoying his brother's presence. Mother had told him many times that he shouldn't worry about how bad the boys fight because the loudest screamer—Thorn—loved the other most. He had not believed her until he caught that sweetness happening.

Glancing into the rear view mirror, he watched Thorn a moment longer. His fingers pinched a strand of hair that had fallen across Victor's nose and tucked it against a cluster behind the ear. He found another stray by the sight of his eyes narrowing and fingers reaching, but all the sudden he froze. Glanced into the window on his side.

Gregorson followed his gaze. A car had moved from the grassy shoulder to the second lane. He couldn't remember seeing a car there.

Thorn's breath caught. In the silence abounding around them, even Gregorson heard the dry swallow. "Daddy, the red car's back."

He pressed on the gas and squinted into the shadows ahead. Where was the town?

The red car rolled up to their side with the window rolled down. "Hey, partner," yelled a waving bearded man in the passenger seat, "You wanna play some cards?"

Howling guffaws from the man driving and a man in the backseat floated into the streams of the silent night. The driver leaned closer to the passenger with a massive smile on his face.

"Come on, boy, we'll show you and your folks a good time."

Gregorson pressed on the brakes, but so did the red car. The three men laughed anew as the backseat window rolled down.

"We just tryin'a be good neighbors," said the third: a bulky middle-aged black man.

Thorn rolled his window down before Gregorson could stop it. "Fuck off you creep," he shouted. "We're not your neighbors."

The driver slapped his hand against the steering wheel. Their smiles melted all at once.

"What did your boy just say to my friend?" seethed the driver.


End file.
